Common cuttlefish

Sepia officinalis

The common cuttlefish or European common cuttlefish is one of the largest and best-known cuttlefish species. It grows to 49 cm in mantle length and 4 kg in weight. Animals from subtropical seas are smaller and rarely exceed 30 cm in ML.

The common cuttlefish is native to at least the Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, and Baltic Sea, although subspecies have been proposed as far south as South Africa. It lives on sand and mud seabeds to a depth of around 200 m. As in most cuttlefish species, spawning occurs in shallow waters.
Common Cuttlefish – Sepia officinalis These are common both in the East Atlantic and mediterranean Sea. Here an adult, half buried in the sand. https://www.jungledragon.com/image/87348/common_cuttlefish_sepia_officinalis.html https://www.jungledragon.com/image/87349/common_cuttlefish_sepia_officinalis.html https://www.jungledragon.com/image/87350/common_cuttlefish_sepia_officinalis_juvenile.html Common cuttlefish,Geotagged,Sepia officinalis,Spain,Spring

Predators

Known predators of ''S. officinalis'' include large fish and whales.

In the wild, ''S. officinalis'' is known to prey upon a wide variety of animals. These include: bony fish, copepods, crustaceans , decapod cephalopods, gastropods, lamellibranches, nemerteans, octopods, ostracods, polychaetes, and pteropods.

A 2008 study on ''S. officinalis'' revealed that cuttlefish embryos, if visually exposed to a certain species of prey , will hunt primarily for that prey in later life. ''S. officinalis'' usually prefer shrimp to crabs, but when the embryos were exposed to crabs and the embryos had hatched, the young cuttlefish switched preferences and proceeded to hunt the crabs more often than the shrimp.

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Status: Least concern
EX EW CR EN VU NT LC
Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionMollusca
ClassCephalopoda
OrderSepiida
FamilySepiidae
GenusSepia
SpeciesS. officinalis
Photographed in
Spain
Netherlands